Its hard to believe that the fishing in the Algarve can be so good, the past few weeks have been a real revelation in what we have been catching on some of the new waters we have researched this year.

It started back in the Autumn with a couple of upper twenties from these new waters for me and for my customers on a couple of my new waters.

 It has continued into Christmas with the Christmas day 30lb fish for Rob, my grandson, he has continued to catch along with customers taken to these lakes, capped this week with a brace of 20lb fish, mirrors of 28lb and 22lbs being hooked, played and landed simultaneously. Wow what a catch and there seems to be no stopping the roll Tightlines are on.

The big fish just keep on coming to Tightlines-Portugal anglers with a catch made up of carp to 25lb and 22lbs on New Years trip.

On New Years Eve my mate Keith Russell phones me up asking if I could join him and a top Portuguese match angler fishing on a secret private water that the top anglers from the national team are using to practice on, I did not need much arm twisting to agree. Keith was at the top end of English match fishing years ago, fishing in the same team as the late great Ivan Marks and keeps in contact with Portuguese match anglers.

We arrived at 9am to find a very nice water of around 30-acres surrounded by a vineyard, fish topping all over the place so I knew from my past experiences of fishing Portuguese bag up waters that this looked good. Keith set up his normal pole gear fishing maggot, I set up match rod and fished the waggler as I had been told that there were bigger fish in the water as well as the normal 3lb match fish. After around 1 hour I started to get indications of fish in the swim and started to pick up the odd fish on sweetcorn, not big fish, but great fighters more like barbel, Keith had started catching on the pole.

At 2pm my grandson phoned me up excited he had been back to fish a water with his mate where we had a 30lb fish Christmas Day , he had just landed a 25lb fish, great. 5 minutes later Rob phones me again this time his mate had a fish of 22lbs, what a great start to the year. I ended the session with 9 fish and missed a few bites and had one double role over under my rod, so this looks like a good place for the summer, our Portuguese friend said you need around 100lbs in a 3 hour match to get in the frame. Not bad for a 5 euro day ticket.

John

I  first  fished this water in 1995 blanked and did not return till this year. That was a BIG mistake as the water was not stocked till 1986 and it seems that the fish are growing at +2lbs a year. It is very clear from our few trips that this water has the potential for 50lb fish and possibly a new Portuguese record IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS so my grandson Rob, 15 years old, has been nagging me to fish it. He had a day there a few weeks ago and his mate had a
fish of 28lbs.

We arrived afternoon on the 24th Dec and set up camp. On Christmas day at 10.30am Rob's alarm screamed out and battle commenced with what proved to be a new pb for Rob at 30lbs This fish was taken on bog standard gear with simple rig - method feeder and sweet-corn on the hook. I had 3 fish to 12lbs as well.

Next day was much slower, so Rob moved around to the other side of the water where we had seen some fish topping and had a fish of 15lbs very quickly and lost two big fish on snags, I had fish of 16lbs and 22lbs same day.

Not a bad result for a few days in winter!

Fancy a trip to shed those Winter blues? Get in touch and find out more about a trip out here with Tightlines yourself!

John Bate

Many thanks for a great holiday John!

Ian Barnet and the lads